Stanford-NYU Report: Drone Attacks Illegal, Counterproductive

trbdavies writes "In 'Living Under Drones,' investigators from Stanford and NYU Law Schools report on interviews with 130 people in Pakistan about U.S.-led drone attacks there, including 69 survivors and family members of victims. The report affirms Bureau of Investigative Journalism numbers that count '474 to 884 civilian deaths since 2004, including 176 children' while 'only about 2% of drone casualties are top militant leaders.' It also argues that the attacks violate international law and are counterproductive, stating: 'Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.'"

Comments

74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess it's time to hang up the drones, and dust of the ICBMs.

Other opinions

[kamapuaa]

On the other hand the Pakistan Military allowed the US to use Pakistani airbases for the drone strikes until 8 months ago, requested increased use of drone attacks in 2008, still offer tacit support for the drone attacks, and have themselves said most of those killed in drone strikes were terrorists, despite the political inconvenience of admitting this (by contrast, Pakistan always denied their connection to terrorists working against India in Kashmir, even when the connection was obvious).

The souring of relations with Pakistan centers on the raid on bin Laden, and just the natural friction between the US and a nation with a record of selling nuclear secrets on the black market, supporting the Taliban, and supporting terrorist actions against India.

Re:Even without the drones. Pakistanis don't like

[Anonymous Coward]

Dissatisfaction with the current incompetent administration != hatred of the USA

Re:Even without the drones. Pakistanis don't like

[hey!]

Is the Pakistani government an enemy of the US and often works against US interests?

Yes.

Is the Pakistani government an ally of the US that shares intelligence with the US and often allows US military to operate on Pakistani soil?

Yes.

Isn't that schizophrenic?

Yep.

Like the US, Pakistan has an elected government. Unlike the US, it has governmental organs that aren't fully under the control of civilian elected officials. The Pakistani military and intelligence services are independent national institutions (Egypt is this way as well) and within those institutions you have various fiefdoms and power centers. The Egyptian military is this way as well, almost forming a distinct society within the society with its own economic and social welfare programs.

Imagine you have a country governed by warlords. There might be some order of precedence or honor which theoretically unifies the country, but still some of the those warlords might be your "friends" and others your enemies. There's nothing mystifying about that. Now imagine those petty rulers aren't warlords who control territory, but bureaucrats that control various state functions. It's not that different.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

And this right here folks is why Americans shouldn't be allowed at the grown-ups' table.

Yes you can "play by the rules" and get the right result. In fact, in Ireland it was only once the British really stopped breaking the rules and adopted a more respectful pose that they made progress. Not playing by the rules just gives ammunition and recruits to your opponents - after all they're painting you as the aggressor here.

How many civilian casualties would have been OK for a drone strike on Timothy McVeigh? Should the Brits have bombed areas of Belfast? How about some extraordinary rendition for anyone who gave money to NORAID (a US based fund directly given to the IRA)?

Drone strikes like these don't reduce the number of enemies - they increase them. Every innocent civilian killed (and they are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty) is a klaxon call to take up arms. When fathers and brothers are killed, who do you think people turn to when they need a new guiding figure in their lives? Would you accept the deaths of your spouse and children because they were in the same region as a terrorist?

Acting like you're some kind of cowboy sheriff isn't going to fix things. This isn't the wild west - it's a country of hundreds of millions of people. Going in guns blazing just makes you the enemy to more and more people, and all the time the terrorists can hold up pictures of the dead innocents as proof that you are the indeed the great Satan that they claim.

You know there are two reasons why the police get hauled over the coals when they break the rules. The first is that people, even guilty ones, have rights. But the second reason is to protect the police themselves: Once they are seen to be corrupt their legitimacy shatters. When this happens they lose the support of the ordinary people, who will stop complying with them. This leads to a total breakdown of law and order, as has been seen countless times across (eg) African nations.

So play by the rules. Breaking them is immoral, it is repugnant, and even worse than all that: It doesn't work.

Re:Persecution of Christians

[Grygus]

I guess I don't understand your point. Let's say you are completely correct; so what? Aren't we, as Americans, supposed to hold ourselves to higher standards of behavior, particularly in terms of tolerance of different races and belief systems? Saying that a militant theocracy acts in a certain horrific way doesn't mean we get to act that way, too;. it means that it's a good thing we're not a militant theocracy. Additionally, criticizing another nation for not adhering to our standards of behavior seems pointless to me, while criticizing ourselves for the same reason seems like a good idea.

What am I missing?

Re:74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enem

[anagama]

Also remember that what the Obama administration means when it says "militant", is a man or a boy killed by a drone. It will revert that to civilian if it is conclusively proven after the fact the person was innocent by some mystical secret standard. In other words, a great many of the "militants" really weren't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2
from page 4

"It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants," the official said. "They count the corpses and they're not really sure who they are."

Re:So let's see...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no claim that this was a random survey. From the article:

Following nine months of intensive research—including two investigations in Pakistan, more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting—this report presents evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of current US drone strike policies.

These interviews provided useful information about various things, such as the "double tap" attacks on rescuers:

Another interviewee, Hayatullah Ayoub Khan, recounted a particularly harrowing incident that he said he experienced while driving between Dossali and Tal in North Waziristan.[163] He stated that a missile from a drone was fired at a car approximately three hundred meters in front of him, missing the car in front, but striking the road close enough to cause serious damage.[164] Hayatullah stopped, got out of his own car, and slowly approached the wreckage, debating whether he should help the injured and risk being the victim of a follow-up strike.[165] He stated that when he got close enough to see an arm moving inside the wrecked vehicle, someone inside yelled that he should leave immediately because another missile would likely strike.[166] He started to return to his car and a second missile hit the damaged car and killed whomever was still left inside.[167] He told us that nearby villagers waited another twenty minutes before removing the bodies, which he said included the body of a teacher from Hayatullah’s village.[168]

Crucially, the threat of the “double tap” reportedly deters not only the spontaneous humanitarian instinct of neighbors and bystanders in the immediate vicinity of strikes, but also professional humanitarian workers providing emergency medical relief to the wounded. According to a health professional familiar with North Waziristan, one humanitarian organization had a “policy to not go immediately [to a reported drone strike] because of follow up strikes. There is a six hour mandatory delay.”[169] According to the same source, therefore, it is “only the locals, the poor, [who] will pick up the bodies of loved ones.”[170]

The dissuasive effect that the “double tap” pattern of strikes has on first responders raises crucial moral and legal concerns. Not only does the practice put into question the extent to which secondary strikes comply with international humanitarian law’s basic rules of distinction, proportionality, and precautions, but it also potentially violates specific legal protections for medical and humanitarian personnel, and for the wounded.[171] As international law experts have noted, intentional strikes on first responders may constitute war crimes.[172]

and the psychological effect of living in an area targeted for aerial attacks:

One of the few accounts of living under drones ever published in the US came from a former New York Times journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban for months in FATA.[198] In his account, David Rohde described both the fear the drones inspired among his captors, as well as among ordinary civilians: “The drones were terrifying. From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death.”[199] Describing the experience of living under drones as ‘hell on earth’, Rohde explained that even in the areas where strikes were less frequent, the people living there still feared for their lives.[200]

Community members, mental health professionals, and journalists interviewed for this report described how the constant presence of US drones overhead leads to substantial levels of fear and stress in the civilian communities below.[201] One man described the reaction to the sound of the drones as “a wave of terror”